Anthony Weiner’s behavior reveals a man who has a compulsion, Simon says. | Jay Westcott/POLITICO
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If Anthony Weiner had been born Anthony Smith, thereby robbing the media of the opportunity to make endless sniggering jokes, would the scandal have been so deliciously impossible to ignore?

And where are our female elected officials when it comes to sex scandals? There are 17 women in the Senate and 75 women in the House, and when it comes to carnal wrongdoing, you never hear a peep out of them.

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This is odd when you consider the English language has so many ugly terms for wayward women (slut, tramp, bimbo and so forth) and so few to describe wayward men (lothario? womanizer? playboy? dude? None seem to quite do it.).

Women are always clamoring about equality, yet when it comes to publicly debasing themselves through sexual misadventure, they hold back. (Prime example: the history of the Kennedy men compared with the history of the Kennedy women.)

If you take a look at the history of Weiner’s behavior — and who hasn’t? — you see a man who has a compulsion, perhaps an illness. When, on Monday, I suggested this on the “Charlie Rose” show, it seemed a little over the top. Today, just two days later, it seems obvious.

A normal person would seek professional help, but Weiner is not a normal person. He is an elected official. And he might find it difficult to tell the public he deserves reelection at the same time he is telling the public he is seeing a psychiatrist.

But he should do so anyway. His health plan will pay for it. How could it not? His health plan covers members of Congress.

The public loves to see the mighty brought low, but it also loves a good comeback. Weiner can come back. He has already done the groveling phase; next he must do the seek-help phase and then the new-man phase. His political resurrection will almost surely follow.

But it might be a long and rocky road, unlike any he has traveled. His life thus far has moved smoothly and at warp speed. No more. Now he realizes how ordinary people live their lives, moving down a highway strewn with potholes and speed traps, lurching between victory and failure, scrabbling to stay on track.

Anthony Weiner may be dreaming about life as a weatherman right now. We never know what lies on the path not taken. But we know where Weiner’s chosen path has led him.

This little man is one sick puppy. One can not help but wonder how much his thinking was influenced by his hero Bill Clinton and Bill's enabaler Hillary. It's doubtful that bill could , even with his power and gravatas, ever gotten away with this level of perversion. This guy is toast.

I don't know what all the fuzz is about. Heck, from what I read professional and college male athletes run around naked in locker room showing their weinees to the female reporters many of them 18 and 19 years old and no one says a fricking thing. Now a guy sends a photo of his ****** to a woman and all hell breaks loose. Yes, I know that the guy is a congressman but really......

I think Weiner’s behavior is disgusting and he is a serial liar. I hope he resigns for the good of our country, however, with a name like Weiner and what he did, he will be the gift that keeps on giving. The jokes will write themselves. If decides not to resign he'll makes great piñata and a good poster boy for the Democratic party in next election. He has nobody to blame but himself. He made his bed, now he has to lie in it.

Enough of the Weiner story. He is just another hot dog in a sea of Washington hot dogs steaming in a swill of corruption and self-interest. The economic crisis that this nation faces is where all of our focus should be. Obama doesn't have a clue and John Boehner is not the man to lead the conservative war on Obama's failed socialist agenda.

If the Republicans in the House don’t get their act together, now, and dump the wimp from Ohio, the 2012 elections are going to be a crisis of confidence for both major parties. The day of the elitist old guard politicians is over and the only ones who don’t know it are those self-same politicians.

We the People have seen that neither major party has a clue as to how to manage the affaires of this nation. It is time for a third party to arise that, truly, believes in government of, by, and for the people. Those in Washington, today, are too involved with their own pet theories and agendas to realize they are going around in circles and only accomplishing a state of perpetual dizziness and failure.

Gov. Chester Bowles said it all when he remarked: “Government is too big and important to be left to the politicians”. Most of these elected officials are failures in the private sector and went into politics where lying, stealing, and cheating are all that are needed to achieve personal success. It is time to clean house and send talented, experienced, knowledgeable, intelligent, educated, sincere, successful, and honest people to government, for a short term, to do what they can to solve the nation’s problems without regard to personal enrichment and life-long government careers.

Well said. 2 out of the 3 admitted conservatives that have left comments so far, see this as the BS non-story, bloated mediafest that it is. Weiners namesake is getting more attention (than it ever has!-waka waka!) than the issues that are dragging our country further and further into the quicksand.

I may not agree with _all_ of your politics, but I certainly agree with your levelheadedness and vision of a future where real problems are the talk of Washington & the media, not this hogwash.

Whether or not people think that Weiner's adulterous fantasies are or aren't reason enough for him to stop representing the people of the US is irrelevant - the reason people of questionable moral integrity like Weiner should not be in office is because they are wide open to blackmail. This man is a cheat and a liar in his personal life, and I guarantee that he conducts himself the same way politically because how you do one thing is how you do everything. It's a matter of integrity. His justification for staying in office is that he didn't break any laws. People need to understand that the law is not a moral measure - it's a last resort that's meant to protect victims when people's morals have failed them.

OK, let's work the guy. Really!! After all, how many times does the public have an opportunity to have any influence whatsoever over their representatives. Since he didn't do anything that likely half of the under thirty crowd hasn't done with the latest technology, it's not as though he shot somebody. Clinton got caught red handed lying directly to the People and he still came out on top. They all lie, every day, every way. So why not use voter leverage to scare him into doing the right thing. The opposite is to let him go and write off the loss. Why not get our money back in the form of some real representative performance that's done for the people. That's assuming, of course, that he has the guts. I kind of think he doesn't because it would take a lot. But, who knows?

Here are the rules.

1. Weiner can't make a material misrepresentation between now and election day.

2. Weiner must answer every question concerning his job honestly if it's public info. Private info is off limits. He doesn't have to answer more than 10 a day but every one that is legit requires an honest answer or else. No private questions, just job related and constructive.

3. Weiner must write an essay on how to fix the economy that doesn't protect his big money people. It has to be an essay that is technically accurate, based upon scientific information, and doesn't provide any advantage to the wealthy weasels that are destroying the country. He must itemize each step and support same with accepted economic theory and common sense. If he puts in some of the traditional fraudulent garbage that his fellow reps think work to fool us then he's out. We don't want old tricks. We want a workable truth.

4. Weiner must write an essay on how to fix the jobs situation, including how to get rid of the illegal aliens. He must provide a solid, working solution on the various steps necessary to achieve the goal of returning the illegals to Mexico and other places.

5. Weiner must write an essay on how to undo the damage done by trade agreements. More accurately, he must describe a method such that those agreements which could be beneficial could be rewritten to include the 315,000,000 people that were accidentally left out of the agreement by the wealthy drafters. He must also explain how to get out of the ones we're in that are making the multinationals rich while destroying the citizens and the government. Trade agreements that just work for a few executives aren't trade agreements, they're fraud.

6. Weiner must do all this by election day or drop out.

7. His constituents agree that if he does all these things and continues to be honest and operate in the best interest of his constituents instead of telling them what he thinks they want to hear, then his constituents will place the issue in the past and vote without regard for any negative it may have created. They don't have to vote for him, but then again, if he does all of this, they probably should vote for him.

8. His constituents are holding the cards now. They can heckle him out of office and get another loser to replace him or they can leverage their power over his future by making demands. Personally, I bet he couldn't do it. Nobody can be that honest in D.C. without getting shot. Or, maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe it's possible. Maybe he could be the idealized repentant and make a good example in the process. If he doesn't, what do his constituents have to lose? You think his replacement will be a good guy working for the people. Dream on.

9. I don't know Weiner and I don't follow him, collect his pictures, or live in New York. I just like thinking that there's a solution to this crud government that's bent on destroying us. Probably wishful thinking.

WIENER DOG HAS 3 PROBLEMS. 1 HE IS BUTT UGLY, 2. HE IS AN ARROGANT POS AND 3 HIS CONDESCENDING ATTITUDE IS REALLY WHAT PIS S E S PEOPLE OFF. IF HE DID NOT HAVE THESE 3 FLAWS, HE MAY BE ABLE TO OVER COME HIS OTHER HANDICAPS

With a name like that that did what did Fox Snooze's Kirsten Powers expect,Oscar Meyer ? Worse the liver lilly scumbag is in his position to help cover up 9/11 mass murder as well.He should be replaced by one of those New York Fire Department heroes who want a real investigation into 9/11 and the tragic death of their comrades and about 3000 others..

Behind every bad man is a bad woman - with the exception of Barney Frank.

On second thought maybe he should have called up W Bush's girlfriend,Jeff Gannon or James Dale Guckert or whatever.At least 'she' was a 'reporter' who knew how to be discreet.